


break these bones 'til they're better [Fragile Things]

by seekingsquake



Category: Naruto
Genre: Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25732042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: "What he wants to do right now is purge the apartment of anything and everything having to do with Mizuki, so that Iruka won’t have to. But it’s not his place. He’s already overstepped, even if Iruka hasn’t kicked him out yet. The only thing he can do is be available to Iruka, as much or as little as he needs; as much as Iruka will allow. He doesn’t expect to be forgiven, and he doesn’t want to take advantage of the situation, but. He wants to prove himself. He can be good enough for Iruka. He can be. Will be, if given another chance."When Iruka is released from the hospital, he finds his ex-boyfriend waiting for him.
Relationships: Mizuki & Umino Iruka, Shiranui Genma/Umino Iruka
Comments: 8
Kudos: 66





	break these bones 'til they're better [Fragile Things]

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read by the lovely Tea-Blitz from The Umino Hours discord server <3  
> Any remaining errors are my own

_ I heard there was someone  _

_ but I know  _

_ he doesn't deserve you _

✧✧✧

When Iruka finally manages to stumble home from the hospital, he doesn’t expect anyone to be in his apartment. Kotetsu and Izumo had both made sure to see him while he was in the recovery ward, and Anko was out of the village on a mission. The only other person who would have stopped by, had this been last week, or last month, or any other time within the past fifteen years, had just tried to kill him, so.

No one should be here. 

He’s not prepared for a fight, physically or mentally, but he palms a kunai anyway. He slowly enters his home, anxiety through the roof, yet held inside as tightly as he can manage. But before he can get farther than a single step inside, the person makes himself known by standing from the couch and showing two empty palms. 

“It’s just me.”

Relief sweeps through Iruka, so suddenly he feels his knees wobble, but his grip on his weapon tightens. “Genma.” The last time they had been here together... “You didn’t need to come.”

Genma shoves his hands into the pockets of his uniform pants, senbon rolling from one side of his mouth to the other. He looks tired, but his uniform looks clean and only lightly worn, and he has no visible injuries or bandages, no new scars. Same old Genma, popping up where people least expect him. “I would have been here yesterday, but I only just heard what happened.”

Iruka wants to go to the kitchen to make tea, or go to his bedroom to faceplant into the familiar scent of his pillows, or sink to the floor and cry. But he can’t bring himself to look away from Genma, and so he does nothing except stand in the entry. He has the mind to kick his door closed with his foot but otherwise doesn’t move. “I’m okay.”

The silence between them is loaded. The last time Genma was here, they’d argued. Or, they’d come as close to arguing as they ever had, and then Genma had flickered away. The only times they’ve even spoken since then has been in the mission room. Friends have been running interference, so they never work the same shifts, but they occasionally cross paths. A chasm ripped open between them, and Iruka doesn’t know how to cross it. 

Genma has never been as reserved as Iruka. “They told me it was Mizuki. That true?” For as lazy and unmotivated as Genma sometimes portrays himself, he’s still been an elite and respected tokubetsu jōnin for years. His face is blank and his voice is almost bored, no part of him expressing even a hint of his thoughts or emotions. 

They’ve always been so different. Iruka has never been able to learn to lock his emotions down like that, even though he’s tried. He knows that his face is giving him away right now. He nods to answer Genma’s question because he can’t bring himself to admit it out loud, and he closes his eyes. He waits for Genma to say  _ I tried to tell you  _ or  _ you should have listened,  _ or maybe  _ you get what you deserve, _ but nothing like that ever comes. What Genma says instead is, “I’m sorry.”

It’s not much, but it’s enough to break what’s left of Iruka’s composure. Tears instantly flood his eyes and stream down his cheeks, and he immediately loses control of his breath. His chakra fluctuates in distress, and he staggers forward far enough that he has to catch himself on the back of the couch. Genma reaches for him slowly, and Iruka can’t tell if there’s hesitation in his movements or reluctance. But finally, Genma’s hands connect with Iruka’s shoulders, and he carefully guides Iruka to sit down on the couch. “I’m sorry,” he says again, quieter, and leans his cheek against Iruka’s head when Iruka leans against him, overcome by another wave of tears.

They haven’t been alone together in months. But Genma had never wanted to reunite like this.

It had been years of working together in the mission room before Genma had finally looked at Iruka one day and thought  _ oh _ . And it took months after that before he could convince Iruka that he was serious when he said he wanted a date. But in the two or so years they’d dated, things had been good. So good that Genma had almost thought he was sometimes dreaming. He hadn’t realized that all that work he put into the relationship could end up meaning nothing after the course of a single fight. Or that moving on would be as hard as it was. Or that maybe, if he had done something else, anything else, this moment wouldn’t be happening. 

“I should have been there.”

Iruka clutches at his vest and trembles. “It wouldn’t have mattered.” Even his voice is trembling. “I should have listened.”

“He was your friend—”

“Apparently he wasn’t—”

“Iruka.” Iruka stops, and Genma pauses a second before sighing. “Stop trying to make everything your fault. It isn’t. Okay? I promise it isn’t.”

Iruka sighs so deeply his whole body heaves, and then he presses his face into Genma’s shoulder. Genma cradles him gently, and they sit in silence like that until the sun goes down.

✧✧✧

Eventually, Genma puts Iruka to bed. “I’ll be on the couch, okay? Just rest. Call if you need anything.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Iruka murmurs, eyes already closed. “I’ll be okay on my own.”

Genma pulls the blanket up over Iruka and presses a kiss to his forehead, gentle and sad. “I know. Let me do this. Please.” Iruka tangles their fingers together briefly but doesn’t say anything. He lets himself fall asleep, and that’s answer enough for Genma. 

They should probably talk, but Iruka’s emotionally drained and still physically hurting. Genma figures any conversation they might need to have can wait at least until morning. He quietly makes his way to the kitchen and starts boiling water for tea, and then he sits down at the table and pulls his hitai-ate off his head. Scrubbing fingers through his hair, he tries to alleviate some of the stress manifesting at the top of his head. A headache is brewing. Maybe he should eat something, but rummaging through Iruka’s cabinets for a snack feels inappropriate. They may have history, and if Genma gets his way, perhaps they’ll have a future, but their  _ right now  _ isn’t...

He just can’t. Not yet. 

The apartment feels claustrophobic. Everywhere he looks, there are places where traces of himself used to be but aren’t anymore. There’s more of Mizuki here than he ever noticed before, and Genma can only imagine what happened after he and Iruka broke up. A vest that doesn’t belong to Iruka is hanging off the bathroom door. A grading book that isn’t Iruka’s— he never uses the binders that allow the spines to open up— is open on the coffee table as if Mizuki is going to come back at any minute and finish up. There are photos of Iruka and Mizuki together up on the fridge, pictures that look more recent than the ones Genma’s seen before. 

Iruka’s relationship with Mizuki had always been platonic, but Genma had never been able to shake the feeling that Mizuki was angling for more. He would never have guessed that Mizuki would do  _ this _ , even if there had been other reasons for concern— and there had been. At least to Genma, there had been. 

What he wants to do right now is purge the apartment of anything and everything having to do with Mizuki, so that Iruka won’t have to. But it’s not his place. He’s already overstepped, even if Iruka hasn’t kicked him out yet. The only thing he can do is be available to Iruka, as much or as little as he needs; as much as Iruka will allow. He doesn’t expect to be forgiven, and he doesn’t want to take advantage of the situation, but. He wants to prove himself. He can be good enough for Iruka. He can be. Will be, if given another chance.

He’s not going to try to kid himself, or anyone else, about why he had given Iruka that ultimatum.  _ You’re friends with him, or you’re with me, you can’t have both.  _ If he had known that Mizuki was a back-stabbing chūnin and child manipulating traitor, he would have gone straight to the Hokage instead of backing his boyfriend into a corner. No, he’d had a bad feeling about Mizuki, and he didn’t like him, but he didn’t have any idea about anything like this. So it was right for Iruka to have responded with  _ then I guess I’m friends with him. Get the fuck out of my kitchen.  _

If Iruka had told him he’d have to stop being friends with Raidō to keep their relationship, he would have kicked Iruka out, too. So he can’t justify it to anyone. He was wrong. And if he’d just kept his damn mouth shut, maybe what happened would have played out differently. Maybe he would have been with Iruka when he went looking for Naruto, and he could have stopped the altercation before anything got out of hand. If he’d still been Iruka’s life, maybe he would have noticed something legit about Mizuki and ended the whole thing before the graduation exams. 

He bites down hard on his senbon. No. As much as it isn’t Iruka’s fault, it isn’t his fault either. He knows that.

But knowing and believing, they aren’t the same thing. Just because the guilt isn’t justifiable doesn’t mean it will go away. Gema can’t let the guilt interfere, though, can’t allow it to motivate him. The reason he came here isn’t that he feels guilty, even though he does. It’s just that...

He’d forgotten that no one was safe, even shinobi that hardly left the village. 

Being an academy instructor reduced Iruka’s chances of sudden, violent, death, but it clearly didn’t mean he was safe. Genma always knew, ever since Iruka took up his post at the academy, that Iruka would die before he let anything happen to his students. But he got so accustomed to the dangers of their lives happening outside the village walls that he forgot evil could fester within. 

It had been festering, right under his fucking nose. And it could have cost Iruka his life.

Living with Iruka on his periphery, pretending that they were nearly strangers, had been difficult. Bordering on unacceptable, really. But trying to live with Iruka dead? Letting Iruka die without having declared his love over and over, every day so that when he went out, he would know just how much he had meant to Genma? 

Outside of protecting their village, there is nothing more important than Iruka. Genma knows that now. Nothing petty like friends he doesn’t like or work schedules that don’t line up will make him lose sight of that again. And even if Iruka won’t take him back, he still needs Iruka to know. 

✧✧✧

Iruka wakes up with a jolt in his back and a shout dying on his tongue. Sweat soaks his hair and clothes, and he feels clammy enough that he wonders if he’s come down with something. His whole body is tight, muscles bunched up and cramped, and when he tries to turn onto his side, the pain makes him snarl.

The bedroom door creaks open, and he wants to throw something at it but he can’t, he can’t even turn to look, and  _ fuck _ , he’s going to die. His best friend just tried to kill him, and now he’s going to die, in his own fucking bed, alone and unable even to defend himself—

“Iruka?”

Genma’s voice hits him like a bucket of cold water. He gasps and collapses back into the bed, groaning as he goes. “Fuck, Gen.”

“Shit,” Genma mutters, striding to Iruka’s bedside. “Relax, relax. Did the hospital send anything home with you?”

“Yeah,” Iruka replies through gritted teeth. “There’s some stuff in my vest.”

Genma helps Iruka roll onto his stomach, then runs into the living room. He had folded Iruka’s vest over the arm of the couch, and he rifles through the pockets until he finds a small tub of muscle relaxant cream and a bottle of painkillers. He also pours a glass of water, and then he takes everything back to the bedroom. 

“Here, let me,” he drops everything on the nightstand and pulls a kunai out of his weapons pouch. “I don’t know if I can get you out of your shirt without hurting you more, so I’m going to cut it off, okay?”

There’s a warning in Iruka’s voice when he says, “Genma,” but it’s not enough to hide the palpable fear. 

“I know,” Genma soothes, “Iruka, I know, but I really don’t want to strain your back, just—” There’s so much he wants to say, but he can’t figure out where to start. So he waits. And finally, Iruka nods. “Okay,” he says, relieved. “Okay, I’m just gonna cut from the middle of the collar down, and I promise it won’t even touch you.”

“Just do it,” Iruka snaps, so Genma does. It’s over in an instant, and he pushes the fabric out of the way so he can spread the cream over Iruka’s shoulders and back. He’s careful not to massage too hard and especially cautious around the slash of new, pink skin covering Iruka’s spine. The healing techniques they’ve got at the hospital mean that the wound is gone, but the muscles in Iruka’s body haven’t caught up with that fact yet. 

After he covers Iruka’s back, he rolls up Iruka’s pant legs and massages his calves. Once he’s got the muscles to relax a bit, he wipes his hands on his pants and gives Iruka two of the pills and helps him drink some water. “Okay?”

Iruka buries his face in his pillow for a second before nodding. He pulls his arms out of his shirt sleeves and drops the ripped fabric onto the floor. “Yeah. Thanks. Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“You know I...,” Iruka sighs, then audibly swallows. He makes a grabby motion at the cup of water, and Genma helps him drink some more. When he’s done, he turns his head to look at Genma over the curve of his shoulder. “I trust you, still. I... even if I flinch, I want you to know that.”

Genma’s throat feels tight. He manages a nod, and he turns the glass between his palms just so that he has something to do with his hands. “It would be okay if you didn’t.”

Iruka huffs, and it almost sounds amused. “That’s nice. But I do. So.”

“Iruka...”

With determination, Iruka manages to roll himself onto his back and sits up against the wall to look at Genma with a loaded stare. “You wanna have this talk right now?” he asks, only a little incredulous.

“What? No. No, I’m just here to help, we—”

“I can practically feel you brooding. We can talk about it now. It’s probably better if we do, honestly. I’m tired of pretending I don’t miss you, you know?”

Genma swallows and focuses on keeping his chakra small and steady. “You miss me?”

Iruka rolls his eyes. “Of course, idiot. I love you.”

It’s like being zapped by lightning, hearing Iruka say it so bluntly. They were in love the whole damn time, but they never verbalized it that often. And hearing it so casually after all this time is... Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising, considering Iruka just about died a couple of days ago, but. “I... miss you, too.”

The smile Iruka gives him is small, but knowing. “Just miss?” Sometimes it feels like he’s inside Genma’s head, like he learned a jutsu or two from a Yamanaka somewhere along the way. 

“No, not just miss. You know that.”

“Tell me?”

Genma crawls up onto the bed and settles beside Iruka, close enough to feel the heat of Iruka’s arm but not close enough to touch. He wants to be closer, but he won’t take more than he’s offered. “I love you,” he whispers, his mouth almost in Iruka’s hair. “I love you.”

“You were right about him,” Iruka says thoughtfully, “because your intuition hasn’t ever lead you astray before. But I can’t let you try to control me like that.”

“I won’t; never again. It wasn’t fair, no matter how he turned out.”

It’s Iruka that bridges the gap between them. He bumps his arm against Genma’s and then rests it there, pressed skin to skin against him. “No other complaints about anyone else I hang out with?”

Genma winds his arm around Iruka’s shoulders and presses his forehead against Iruka’s cheek. “No. And, if something comes up, I’ll tell you. But I won’t ever try to force your hand again. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Iruka. I’ve missed you so much.”

Finally, finally, Iruka relaxes. He slumps, and he drags Genma down with him until they’re both lying flat on their backs, pressed together tightly. He’d missed this, having Genma against him like this, but had refused to be the one who proposed reconciliation. But Genma had come back on his own. It would have been easy for Genma to rub it in his face, but he hasn’t. And he won’t, Iruka knows.

He’s surprised at how easily and intensely he still trusts. Mizuki blindsided him, and he’s shaken, but. Somehow, he still has faith in Konoha and her shinobi, but mostly in Genma. Kotetsu and Izumo, and Anko as well, but maybe not enough to hold a kunai to his back just yet. But Genma. Genma still has his unwavering faith. And his heart.

✧✧✧

When Iruka finally manages to stumble home from the bar, he doesn’t expect anyone to be in his apartment. Kotetsu and Izumo were still doing shots when Iruka gave up, and Anko was pulling an overnight shift down at T&I. The only other person who had clearance to get through Iruka’s wards was out of the village and not due back until next week, so. 

No one should be here. 

He’s not in any shape to fight; drunk, but also stiff and inflexible despite the rigorous PT regime he’s on, but he slips a few shuriken between his fingers anyway. Slowly he enters his home, holding his chakra as tightly to himself as he can and focusing on keeping his footsteps silent. But before he can get more than a few steps past the foyer, the intruder rolls off the couch and stands, reaching for him with open arms.

“It’s just me,” Genma murmurs, tired, a bandana skewed over his head and his uniform pants low on his hips. 

“You’re early,” Iruka says as he drops his weapons on the floor, smiling, and lets himself be reeled into a tight hug. 

Genma sighs. “I would have been here yesterday, but I got caught up at the border.” 

Iruka presses his face against Genma’s bare shoulder, his hands roaming skin, seeking bandages, scrapes, or new scars and finding nothing unfamiliar. He wants to get some water, to fight off the hangover he knows he’s going to have tomorrow, or sink onto the couch and just rest there for a bit, but he doesn’t. He says, “Come to bed?” and Genma presses a kiss into Iruka’s hair as he nods, and together they move slowly to the bedroom.

They strip out of their clothes and tumble into bed together, and they end up only half under the blankets with their legs intertwined. “I missed you,” Genma murmurs, already half asleep but with his arms wrapped tightly around Iruka’s torso.

“I missed you too,” Iruka says softly. “Glad you’re home.”

“Love you.” The words are almost lost, muffled by the bedding and behind Genma’s lips, but Iruka feels the shape of them against his skin. If he were less tired, he’d insist on pyjamas, and pulling the blanket up, and making sure neither of them has to be anywhere in the morning.

As it is, all he can manage is to echo, “Love you,” back before falling asleep in Genma’s arms. 

✧✧✧

_ And if you were _

_ Mine _

_ I’d never let anyone hurt you _

**Author's Note:**

> Bookending quotes are from James Arthur's _Can I Be Him_  
>  Title is from Sleeping At Last's _Atlas: Eight_


End file.
